|
| Marijuana's Distant Relative May Be Next Prozac |
|
Posted by CN Staff on December 01, 2002 at 16:06:26 PT By Andrew Porterfield Source: EurekAlert 
Irvine, Calif. -- Man-made chemicals that are distant relatives of marijuana may eventually become new drugs to combat anxiety and depression, according to a UC Irvine College of Medicine study. The study is the first to show how anxiety is controlled by the body's anandamide system, a network of natural compounds known for their roles in governing pain, mood and other psychological functions. While marijuana relieves anxiety by working on the same system, laboratory rats given the new drugs don't seem to suffer the side effects produced by THC, marijuana's active ingredient. The study appears on Nature Medicine's Web site and will be published in the January 2003 issue. After designing and testing a number of different chemicals, pharmacology professor Daniele Piomelli and his team found two, called URB532 and URB597, which relieved anxiety and worked in ways far gentler than THC. "THC reduces anxiety by binding directly to receptors in the brain and resulting in its familiar 'high' sensation," Piomelli said. "This reaction is too strong, creating marijuana's side effects." URB532 and URB597, on the other hand, inhibit the activity of an enzyme that breaks apart natural anandamide, leaving more of the neurotransmitter to help reduce anxiety and depression. This is similar to the way Prozac works on serotonin, another natural anti-depressant neurotransmitter. With this gentler biochemical approach, URB532 and URB597 were able to keep brain anandamide levels high for many hours after a single dose without producing visible side effects. "While the study's results are promising, the road from laboratory discovery to available medication is years long, often winding, and definitely expensive," Piomelli said. "In fact, most drugs never make it beyond the discovery stage, for a number of scientific and commercial reasons. But nearly all drugs on the market today saw their start at the laboratory discovery phase." Note: Chemical reduces anxiety using novel nerve system in body. Complete Title: Marijuana's Distant Relative May Be The Next Prozac A complete archive of press releases is available on the World Wide Web at: http://www.today.uci.edu Source: EurekAlert (DC) Medical Marijuana Information Links CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
 |
|
Comment #5 posted by vinylmesh on August 01, 2008 at 06:40:23 PT:
|
| cocaine works as a dopamine re-uptake inhibitor just like prozac is a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. cocaine is not a "gentle" way of boosting your dopamine levels. Simmilarly these drugs are unlikely to be either. You can't ever have a "highless" cannabinoid product. The anti-anxiety effects and the high are one in the same! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by The GCW on December 01, 2002 at 18:23:40 PT |
| benefits of cannabis like oids in the labs... It all adddds additional legitimacy to cannabis. If I can get the benefits of cannabi in this little pill for $300 bucks a month, what about growing it in the yard for free? And Yes, THE CREATOR. "For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name,..." -Malachi 1:11 Do not do as the prohibitionists (or the sinning priests) do, in saying, "The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is to be dispised." Malachi 1:12 Those two verses and the whole area of Malachi 1:6-14 seems to describe and label the prohibition of cannabis as: the "Sin of the Priest," as it is subtitled in the N.A.S.B. LOVE THE CREATOR The Green Collar Worker [ Post Comment ] |
|
Comment #3 posted by afterburner on December 01, 2002 at 17:07:09 PT:
|
| "Potatoes Not Prozac" Cannabis not URB532 and URB597. This bland search for "highless" cannabis produces a juiceless patient. The "familiar high" is a spiritual awakening. If medical cannabis users do not want the high, they can use the refined "decaf" of URB532 and URB597, which will undoubtedly be overpriced, like Marinol. Incidentally many medical cannabis users have already tried Marinol without effective relief. When will Western (hu)man realize that searching for an active ingredient, like cocaine or heroin, goes against nature and creates bigger problems than the coca or opium poppy plants. The same goes for trying to eliminate addiction from pain-killers: opium to morphine to heroin, bigger and bigger addiction. The synergy of natural buffers in plants reduce the harm-potential. The more refined the "drug" the more dangerous. ego destruction or ego transcendence, that is the question. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by The C-I-R-C-L-E on December 01, 2002 at 17:00:05 PT |
| DAILY sales averages of controlled anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals run in the tens of millions. (prozac is somewhere around $10 million a day alone...) [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by The C-I-R-C-L-E on December 01, 2002 at 16:54:43 PT |
| "...anxiety is controlled by the body's anandamide system...MARIJUANA RELIEVES ANXIETY by working on the same system..." "THC REDUCES ANXIETY by binding directly to receptors in the brain..." Any questions? [ Post Comment ] |
| Post Comment |  |
 |  |